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We had a club tournament out of Goose Pond this past Saturday. To be honest, I really really really didn't want to fish it. Guntersville has been brutal this year. I fully recognize that I may be part of the issue, as I haven't fished it nearly as much as I have in previous years.
There is a reason for that. It's tough!
But, in order to be eligible for the club Classic, I HAD to fish it. No problem . I just need to prefish.
Well, I didn't get the chance to prefish. Without being able to eliminate water and with my aforementioned struggles on the G, I gave serious thought to just showing up at the ramp, paying my money, and heading home.
After all, it's fall which means college football. Having taken an opportunity to write about college football for TrackEmTigers , I really needed to watch the game so I would be educated about it when it was time to write.
Well, the tournament didn't start so well.
It's my fault, really. I stayed up until midnight watching college football because I had some fantasy players playing in games that didn't matter.
I set my alarm, but it didn't' go off. What did go off was my partner Brad, who woke me up about 30 minutes after I was supposed to be at his place. That was a strange drive to make, as I was far from awake.
We decided to run all the way to Crow creek. He had done some fishing a few weeks prior and found some fish. We already knew that, chances were, those fish were long gone. But, it was somewhere to start. We planned on throwing frogs all day.
We started out working grass lines. We worked several hundred yards without so much as a knock.
We moved to Raccoon creek around 10. Same thing.
There was no popping from the grass, which did look decent, though the rains earlier that week had submerged some grass and knocked the scum down, which is what we were looking for.
At noon, we made another move. I had an area around BB Comer bridge that had consistently been ok for froggin. By ok, I meant that i might could catch a fish or two. It wasn't a place to win a tournament and I knew that. At that point, we just wanted a hit. The grass sounded very good, but the sun was staying hidden behind the clouds, which I knew was going to be a problem.
We had been on this spot for about ten minutes when the sun finally came out.
The problem with throwing a frog for 6 hours without a bite isn't that the fish continue to be stubborn, but when they do decide to hit and you aren't ready.
That very thing happened to Brad as he was throwing his Spro frog. We were talking about Auburn's troubles with JSU and he had a very aggressive blowup. He never saw it, but we both heard it. By the time he tried to set the hook, the fish was gone.
This very thing happened three more times.
Finally, I had a hit, which I stuck so hard that I current have bruises on both my ribs and my bicep. It was a measuring fish and a start.
Minutes later I had a second fish in the boat.
Brad had a blowup and he boated fish #3.
For the next hour, we had hits, but they corresponded directly to the over-head sun. When the sun was hidden, we didn't get bites. When it was out, we got hits. But, the sporadic sunlight made for some weak hits.
We ended up with only three fish on around 10 hits. It took 23 pounds to win, though I don't have a clue how that was done. Second and third place were ounces apart and right under 15 pounds. Hardly anyone else had fish.
I know people are catching, and will continue to catch, fish on Guntersville. But, you better be dedicated enough to fish long periods of times between hits. I can't and won't do that. I haven't caught a fish over 5 pounds on Guntersville this year, nor have I had an outing where I caught more than five. Granted, I am not a great fisherman. I am just average, like most of you. So, take that into consideration.
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